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Urban Meyer’s post-practice notes from Thursday

Florida coach Urban Meyer used the word “good” 28 times in his 15-minute press conference today, but that seems like the wrong word to describe this week.

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This is what is on his agenda for the week: resolve an undisclosed issue with freshmen Ronald Powell and Dominique Easley, reconfigure his offensive line, probably find a new starting tight end, deal with the ongoing agent-athlete problem and settle on a back-up quarterback.

— Everything’s “good” with Powell and Easley. They missed part of Tuesday’s practice and never threatened to transfer, Meyer said. Click here for more on that.

— Remember that talk about Mike Pouncey moving out to tackle because of injuries on the offensive line? Well, Meyer is against it and this is not a democracy. Offensive coordinator Steve Addazio and Pouncey indicated Pouncey likely would move from center to tackle, but Meyer’s vote outweighs anyone else’s.

Tackles Matt Patchan (right wrist) and Xavier Nixon (right knee) will miss at least the opener, maybe more. Nixon had surgery on his knee (no details given by Meyer) and Patchan had a pin put in his wrist.

Meyer does not want to move Pouncey off of center because he is concerned about bad snaps.

“I was opposed to that because it’s the first game and I want the ball to hit the quarterback in the hands and not look like Bad News Bears out there,” Meyer said. “I don’t think we’re going to move Mike.”

— For a moment, Florida thought it lost starting TE Jordan Reed to a season-ending right knee injury. Turned out to be merely a deep bruise, but he’s doubtful for the opener.

“That’s a pain tolerance thing,” Meyer said.

Sounds like subtle motivation for Reed to gut it out and play.

If he doesn’t play, Meyer said he could use QB Trey Burton or WR Omarius Hines at tight end. Freshman Gerald Christian is the No. 2 tight end on the depth chart.

— How is QB John Brantley’s health? “He’s good.”

— Janoris Jenkins is a starting CB, but the other one has not been set yet. Meyer gave a confusing answer when asked, but he seemed to indicate Jeremy Brown will get the job in Week 1.

Hicks is expected to miss the rest of the week with a sprained thumb. Best guess at this point is that Jones starts at SLB, Bostic at MLB, Jenkins at WLB.

— Meyer and other coaches had another agent-athlete conference call today. This one included Bob Stoops, Nick Saban, Mack Brown and Jim Tressel. Lane Kiffin tried to call in, but no one would give him the six-digit passcode.

“What you find out is it’s not like running a team; it takes forever,” Meyer said.” But there’s a lot of good minds on there, a lot of good people that want to do it right.”

Meyer added that the purpose of the calls is “to stop the nonsense. It’s evaluate the rules, enforce the rules and then try to stop what’s going on. That sounds real easy, it does to a coach, until you get everybody on the phone and you’re like, ‘Wow. I never thought of that.’ You get legal issues and everything else. I was just a listener. It was unbelievable.”

Meyer said there will be a big meeting at some point, but he does not think head football coaches will attend because it probably will be during the season.

— One interesting note that came out of Meyer’s talk about agents was his implication that nothing has come out of the Maurkice Pouncey investigation yet. Florida, the NCAA and the police are investigating an allegation that Pouncey accepted $100,000 from an agent’s runner. Pouncey said the accusation is untrue.

Meyer wedged this comment into the middle of some other ones, but it seems to be referring to the Pouncey investigation: “Everything’s coming back positive about the investigation. I’m not sure if it’s finished yet. I think we do everything by the book and I’d be disappointed if I found something that we don’t.”